Los Alamos National Laboratory

Bradbury Science Museum will host an open house event, featuring the New Mexico Consortium’s Biofuel Exhibit, from 5-8 p.m. July 26.

There will be a brief presentation by Dr. Jose Olivares, Bioscience Division Leader, from 6- 6:15 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.

“Algae to Biofuels: Squeezing Power from Pond Scum” is brainchild of Olivares of LANL and Dr. Richard Sayre of NMC and LANL.

The exhibits highlight the work of the NMC and algae researchers at LANL, UNM and NMSU to create an informative, educational, interactive exhibit to display at the Bradbury Museum.

The NMC plans to develop the exhibit for a broad audience to take it “on the road” as part of the NMC’s educational outreach program.

Why algae?

Some experts believe that algae is set to eclipse all other biofuel feedstocks as the cheapest, easiest, and most environmentally friendly way to produce liquid fuel. Come learn why it’s easy to get excited by algae, how fast they grow, how they can help humanity and the environment.

The exhibit talks about the 8,000 kinds of algae and how we find the strains with the potential to replace fossil fuels. Learn about the latest research on algae to produce high value products and how it is harvested and processed.

An international team of information scientists has begun a two-year study to investigate how web links in scientific and other academic articles fail to lead to the resources being referenced.
This is the focus of the Hiberlink project in which the team from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Edinburgh will assess the extent of “reference rot” using a vast corpus of online scholarly work. It is funded by a grant of $500,000 from the US-based Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, coordinated by EDINA, the designated online services center at the University of Edinburg, which serves the needs of universities and colleges across the UK.
“Increasingly, scientific papers contain links to web pages containing, for example, project descriptions, demonstrations, and software. But, as we all know, web pages change or disappear,” said Herbert Van de Sompel, the Los Alamos principal investigator on the project. “Currently, there is no archival infrastructure to safeguard such pages and hence revisiting them some time after they were linked from a paper is many times impossible. The result is a broken scholarly record.”

Who is Norris Bradbury? He has been called the “savior” of Los Alamos and even the “father” of the federal laboratory system, yet many people have not heard of him.
Los Alamos National Laboratory historian Alan Carr discussed his life, career and influence of Norris Bradbury in the first of two brown bag public lectures at the Bradbury Science Museum.

The first lecture Tuesday covered Bradbury’s young life, work on the Manhattan Project and post World War II time. The second lecture on Aug. 21 will focus on why the lab evolved into a multidisciplinary institution and Bradbury’s legacy. Employees and the public are welcome to bring their lunch.

Los Alamos National Laboratory at the direction of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos Field Office will restrict access on Pajarito Road to only laboratory badge holders effective Monday, Aug. 12.

This means that laboratory personnel and subcontractors will no longer be able to “vouch” for non-laboratory personnel such as family members.

“Our laboratory and security access procedures are continually reviewed and updated to ensure we provide a secure working environment for our employees and visitors,” said Michael Lansing, the laboratory’s Associate Director for Security and Safeguards. “Entry to the Pajarito Corridor provides access to our most sensitive areas and now is restricted to those with a valid reason and badge to enter this area.”

Pajarito Road has been access controlled for several years. Only individuals who have federal or Laboratory issued badges can travel this road, which traverses through several Laboratory technical areas and intersects with N.M. 4 on the east end and Diamond Drive on the west end near the main Technical Area 3.

The laboratory and the Los Alamos Field Office of the NNSA are in the process of notifying local government and school officials, about the planned changes to access on Pajarito Road.

Los Alamos National Laboratory at the direction of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos Field Office will restrict access on Pajarito Road to only Laboratory badge holders effective Monday, Aug. 12. This means that Laboratory personnel and subcontractors will no longer be able to “vouch” for non-Laboratory personnel such as family members.

“Our Laboratory and security access procedures are continually reviewed and updated to ensure we provide a secure working environment for our employees and visitors,” said Michael Lansing, the Laboratory’s Associate Director for Security and Safeguards. “Entry to the Pajarito Corridor provides access to our most sensitive areas and now is restricted to those with a valid reason and badge to enter this area.”

Pajarito Road has been access controlled for several years. Only individuals who have federal or Laboratory issued badges can travel this road, which traverses through several Laboratory technical areas and intersects with NM 4 on the east end and Diamond Drive on the west end near the main Technical Area 3.

The Laboratory and the Los Alamos Field Office of the NNSA are in the process of notifying local government and school officials, about the planned changes to access on Pajarito Road.

An international team of information scientists has begun a two-year study to investigate how web links in scientific and other academic articles fail to lead to the resources being referenced.

This is the focus of the Hiberlink project in which the team from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Edinburgh will assess the extent of “reference rot” using a vast corpus of online scholarly work. It is funded by a grant of $500,000 (£310,000) from the US-based Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, coordinated by EDINA, the designated online services center at the University of Edinburg, which serves the needs of universities and colleges across the UK.

“Increasingly, scientific papers contain links to web pages containing, for example, project descriptions, demonstrations, and software. But, as we all know, web pages change or disappear,” said Herbert Van de Sompel, the Los Alamos principal investigator on the project. “Currently, there is no archival infrastructure to safeguard such pages and hence revisiting them some time after they were linked from a paper is many times impossible. The result is a broken scholarly record.”

Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Charlie McMillan will be one of 17 speakers at this year’s TEDxABQ, event organizers announced this week. TEDxABQ, scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 7 at Popejoy Hall, is an independently organized event in Albuquerque affiliated with the popular TED Talks series.
McMillan will discuss the linkage between early education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (known as STEM) and national security.
“In national security science, we can’t afford to lose a generation of young people,” McMillan said.
“Particularly U.S. citizens. The world is a rapidly changing place.”
McMillan is by law one of four people in the U.S. who must send an annual letter to the President and Congress assessing the state of weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
But because the U.S. stopped full-scale nuclear weapons testing in 1992, the assessments must depend on classified, highly sophisticated computer modeling and non-nuclear experiments.
“It’s like proving that a 40-year old car will start, but without actually starting the engine,” McMillan said.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory is considering a change to its logo to better reflect what it calls a diverse and evolving mission.
LANL officials say the lab was established 70 years ago with the sole mission of designing and building an atomic bomb to end World War II.
Today, they say, its work in national security covers a wide range of issues — including nuclear non-proliferation, energy security, climate change modeling, countermeasures to nuclear and biological terrorist threats and space.
The lab is conducting an online survey for feedback on potential logos at https://surveymonkey.com/s/YBHQYHX

Many southwestern forests in the United States will disappear or be heavily altered by 2050, according to a series of joint Los Alamos National Laboratory-University of New Mexico studies.
In a new video produced by Los Alamos, Nathan McDowell, a Los Alamos plant physiologist, and William Pockman, a UNM biology professor, explain that their research, and more from scientists around the world, is forecasting that by 2100 most conifer forests should be heavily disturbed, if not gone, as air temperatures rise in combination with drought.
“Everybody knows trees die when there’s a drought, if there’s bark beetles or fire, yet nobody in the world can predict it with much accuracy.” McDowell said.
“What’s really changed is that the temperature is going up,” thus the researchers are imposing artificial drought conditions on segments of wild forest in the Southwest and pushing forests to their limit to discover the exact processes of mortality and survival.
Wild forest analysis more effective than greenhouses
The study is centered on drought experiments in woodlands at both Los Alamos and the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, which broke its waste shipping records in 2012, has exceeded last year’s mark with three months left to go in fiscal year 2013. During the past nine months, Los Alamos shipped 1,074 cubic meters of transuranic (TRU) and mixed low-level waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and other approved waste disposal facilities, exceeding last year’s record of 920 cubic meters.

“Los Alamos continues to exceed expectations dispositioning waste from Area G,” said Pete Maggiore, assistant manager for Environmental Operations at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos Field Office. “The success of this campaign has been made possible through the efforts of many people, including our partners at the New Mexico Environment Department.”

The effort is part of an agreement between the New Mexico Environment Department and the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and Office of Environmental Management to remove 3,706 cubic meters of TRU waste stored aboveground at Area G, the laboratory’s waste storage facility, by June 30, 2014. The accelerated removal campaign is in its second year, with a goal to remove 2,600 cubic meters of waste by September 30, 2013. Since the campaign began, Los Alamos has removed 1,994 cubic meters of waste.